(Commissario Brunetti Book 1), by Donna Leon, 2012, Kindle Edition, Grove Press

I was looking forward to the first book of the Commissario Brunetti series as I had read (or listened to) four of her books in the series previously. I was not impressed with this one, however, as it was the slowest of any that I have done. The murder plot is about a conductor who does not return for the third act of an opera and is later determined to be dead. The narration and the characters are fine, but the story proceeds at a snail’s pace. Also, there doesn’t seem to be as much banter between Brunetti and his colleagues as there is in some of her later books.

I will continue with these books in the future, but I hope that they pick up the pace.